AZR opens with a parable on the confessional phrase "we are guiltier than any nation" ("ashamnu mikol am"): while the peoples of Europe rose within a thousand years from savagery to civilization, Israel descended from the high cultural rank it held three thousand years ago. And where is this most conspicuous? Precisely in the question of woman's rights.
"We were the first who, three thousand years ago, recognized the rights of woman, and in several matters gave her precedence over the right of man... That was three thousand years ago, and now 'we are guiltier than any nation.' We have descended from that rank to the rank of savages who desire the enslavement of woman." AZR, "On the Question of Woman's Rights," Davar, 5685 (1925).
His central argument: the right to vote is the natural right of every human being. Denying it to woman is not a matter of wisdom but of force — exactly like slavery.
"For what is the denial of the right to vote to woman if not slavery?... How many men there are who are devoid of sense, and how many, conversely, are wise women — yet the foolish man is given the right to vote, and the wise woman is denied that right. Is there not in this savagery and cultural decline?" Ibid.
"This right is God's gift to all human beings — that guardians they do not want shall not be set over their heads; and it goes without saying that the woman too may say: I cannot accept that so-and-so should be a guardian over me against my will." Ibid.
The sharpest part is aimed at the religious opponents. AZR argues that it is precisely they who betray the ideal of the Torah, and likens their position to that of the Church, which upheld servitude.
"And it is a wonder that the devout are the ones who oppose this elementary justice... Our leaders want the sons of our people to sign with their own hands that the prohibition 'thou shalt not rob' — the gravest of prohibitions — must be struck from the Torah; for the denial of woman's right is nothing less than outright robbery!" Ibid.
"The Turks and the Hottentots are already prepared to recognize the right of woman, and the Jews, heirs of a high culture of three thousand years, desire the denial of this elementary right. For shame!" Ibid.
The essay does not stand alone. It complements his esteem for the learned woman throughout his writing: his translation of the memoirs of Glikl of Hameln and his presentation of her as a "daughter of Torah" (see "Glikl's Memoirs"), and his defense of Bruriah and Edel against patriarchal slander (see "Historical Sketches"). Here he translated that same esteem into an explicit civic position.